Opera have released a press release stating that they now have over 100 million users.

This figure includes 50 million users on Windows, Mac and Linux, plus another 50 million users browsing the web with Opera Mini on their mobile devices.

100 million users comes after a staggering 30% jump in desktop users from the same time last year, mostly attributed to the release of Opera 10.x browsers.

“Our focus on speed, security, innovation and usability continues to yield results. We always listen to the needs and wants of our users, and they reward us by choosing Opera,” said Jon von Tetzchner, Co-founder, Opera Software.

Congratulations to Opera on the achievement, and new users can download Opera for their computer or mobile device from the Opera website.

Google Chrome developers have pushed out new code to Mac beta users allowing them access to bookmark sync and browser extensions, just over a month after these features made it to the dev channel.

Chrome 5.0.307.7 brings many new features to Mac, and also included updates for Linux users.

Mac users now have access to these new features:

• Extensions
• Bookmark sync
• Bookmark manager
• Cookie manager
• Task manager

The team have also worked hard to ensure the browser is more stable, while having better support for plug-ins like Adobe Flash Player.

The new updated will be pushed out to existing users, or can be downloaded using the links below:

• Windows: http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?extra=betachannel
• Mac: http://www.google.com/chrome?platform=mac
• Linux: http://www.google.com/chrome?platform=linux

Google has pushed out version 5 of Chrome to the dev channel for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Not much has changed so far, but Windows versions will now use the default download folder for downloading files, while the Mac version is now more stable with extensions.

Linux versions now include support for desktop notifications, along with improved support for complex text such as Arabic and Hebrew.

Being development versions, they are prone to instability and crashes. There is currently one known bug in the Mac version, which will crash the browser when a user clears the cookies.

Users can jump on the dev channel version of Google Chrome by following instructions on the Chromium website.

Google has finally released Chrome Beta for both Mac and Linux.

Version 4.0.249.30 has been promoted to the Beta channel for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Mac users who had a previous developer  build installed will automatically be moved to the Beta channel.

Chrome on Linux is integrated tightly with native GTX themes, while updates are managed by the standard system package manager.

Mac users will also notice that Chrome has a native Mac OS X graphical user interface.

Download links are below:

• Download Google Chrome Beta for Windows
• Download Google Chrome Beta for Mac
• Download Google Chrome Beta for Linux

Opera have released Opera 10, after releasing Opera 10 Alpha 1 way back in December 2008.

“Opera 10 showcases a sleek new design coupled with our new Turbo technology, which keeps Web pages loading lightning fast, even if your connection slows down” says the spiel on Opera’s homepage.

Other new features include an in-line spell check, full Acid3 compliance and mouse gestures.

A full run down on features and download links for Windows, OS X, and Linux can be found on the Opera 10 site.

Google Chrome 4.0.202.2 is now completely 64 bit compatible, and no longer uses any 32 bit libraries and is available for Linux.

“The v8 team did some amazing work this quarter building a working 64-bit port.  After a handful of changes on the Chromium side, I’ve had Chromium Linux building on 64-bit for the last few weeks” said Google Chrome Software Engineer Dean McNamee.

The new builds can be downloaded from here, with build instructions also being available for Linux users.

A Windows and Mac version are set to follow.

Google has released software called O3D which aims to bring accelerated 3D graphics to the web browser.

O3D is a plug-in available for all major browsers on Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms.

The technology works by allowing developers access to a computers 3D hardware simply by using JavaScript.

The plug-in is available from Google today, and the website includes live demo’s and a video showing off the technology.

Ben Gooder from Google has revealed that the Linux version of Google Chrome will be using the Gtk+ developer libraries.

This is partly the cause of the delay with both Mac and Linux versions of Chrome, as using native GUI libraries for each version of Chrome requires a large amount of extra time.

Gooder explains “that using these frameworks also limits what you can do to a lowest common denominator subset of what’s supported by that framework on each platform”.

In the long run, this means that Chrome for Linux will look like Chrome for Linux, instead of having a foreign interface.

A release date for Google Chrome Linux is still to be announced.

After news that Google Chrome is no longer using WinHTTP libaries in alpha versions of its web browser, Google now hopes to relese its browser for both Mac OS X and Linux before the first half of this year.

Chrome’s product manager Brian Rakowski said Mac and Linux versions are progressing. “That team now is able to render most Web pages pretty well. But in terms of the user experience, it’s very basic”.

“We have not spent any time building out features. We’re still iterating on making it stable and getting the architecture right.”

The status of the Mac OS X version can be tracked on the Google Chrome Dev Channel.

With all the news that Google Chrome’s market share has droped since it’s release, I thought it was only fitting to add some more statistics to the fire.

On another technology site that I run, browser stats were as follows for the month of September:

Browser Market Share for September

Through the month of September, Chrome’s usage has dropped around 30% from its release. Usage seems to have stabalised since then.

Of interesting note, is that Google Chrome has still gained a larger market share than Opera. It should also be noted that Chrome is still only available on Windows. Perhaps it’s market share will again increase when offical Mac and Linux versions are released.

Perhaps Google Chrome hasn’t shaken up the market as much as everyone predicted. Did you try Google Chrome and are you still using it?